The Town Council’s Bexhill Wild Domesday Project began on 1st June 2023 and is now entering its fourth year. The word ‘Domesday’ does not signify ‘doom’ for Nature, but instead it reflects King William the Conqueror’s great Domesday Book which recorded almost everything about England’s landscape and property assets.
So, our local Domesday Project has been collecting information across 30 data subjects over the last three years, and the result is a clearer picture of the wildlife, plant life, landscape and climatic effects on the town.
Bexhill-on-Sea is the only town in England of its size to have three Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). These are Pevensey Marshes, Combe Valley and Highwoods. In addition, there are ancient and beautiful bluebell woodlands over 400 years old, and over 100 pockets of smaller woods. The Bexhill area has the Combe Haven River which is fed by the Powdermill and Watermill Streams and there is also the Egerton Stream that runs through Sidley Woods.
One of the glories of Bexhill is our wildlife with over 150 species of birds either living here or migrating to and fro each year to places like Greenland and Senegal. There are several colonies of bats in the town centre area including the rare Nathusius’ pipistrelle that flies from Latvia and Lithuania. There are very rare mining bees, such as Colletes cunicularius and Andrena vaga. This latter bee was previously thought to be extinct in Britain.
The town has many rich and important areas of landscape including fen, marsh, meadow, woodland, farmland, vegetated beach, parkland, cliff scenery and low-tide sands and rocks where dinosaur footprint can be seen. More than 26 species of dinosaur have been identified in Bexhill including the world’s smallest bird-dinosaur.
Fortunately, Bexhill has access to a host of wildlife organisations and enthusiasts backed up by voluntary and professional organisations, and experts on environments and species ranging from beetles and butterflies to soil erosion, bird migration and sea defences, who want to make sure that our natural environment is logged, monitored, and rescued before it is too late.
So, what are the results so far? These are contained in a large, structured Domesday Report that is shortly to be appended to the Town Council’s website. This report by the Domesday Project Manager shows how the town has some great assets and some serious problems regarding climate change, conservation and biodiversity net gain. It also shows how lucky we are to have so many wildlife species and landscapes including parks and woods and especially beach areas.
The Domesday Project also has a series of targets for future work in Year Four. Potentially, these include:
- Planting in Sidley Woods
- Making Galley Hill a Local Nature Reserve
- Reducing pollution coming into the Combe Haven River
- Planting in the vegetated beach areas of Normans Bay
- Helping Small Tortoiseshell butterflies to recover their numbers
- Operating a Nature Club for Bexhill
- Taking walkers on detailed Field Visits accompanied by an expert to examine nature closely
- Providing free seeds for private gardens to help make pollination and nectar corridors
- Monitoring coastal erosion due to longshore drift
- Establishing protection for ground-nesting Lapwings
- Providing water for wildlife
- Designing printed educational material for children and schools
- Logging wildlife data on national recording systems.
- Working with national, regional, county and local organisations including the Environment Agency, Natural England, new Sussex political structures, Sussex Wildlife Trust, Bexhill Environmental Group and other local groups, as well as Combe Valley Countryside Park CIC.
In Year Four we will also be looking ahead to local population growth due to the many new housing projects that may raise the local population from 45,000 people to almost 60,000, with consequent effects of landscape, wildlife, educational and transport needs.
The reorganisation of the Sussex political landscape will mean that Rother District Council will close, with a number of parcels of land transferred to the Town Council. Each of these parcels will require a thorough survey to ensure there are no invasive plants or pollution but also to evaluate the potential of each site for biodiversity net gain. The Domesday Project will be in the forefront of this programme of evaluation.
If you have any questions about the town’s wildlife and landscape, please contact town.clerk@bexhilltowncouncil.gov.uk and we will arrange for the Domesday Project to research an answer for you.
